2019 NCAA Men's Lacrosse Championship

2019 NCAA Men's Lacrosse Championship : After a wild quarterfinal weekend with three overtime games, we only three more men’s Division I lacrosse games left to play. And they’ll all be held in the cheesesteak capital of the world, Philadelphia.

Safe and I will be down for the grand finale of the college lacrosse season (I might be doing other things as well). Four great teams, three more games, two winners on Saturday, one national champion. And you can catch all the action on ESPN2!

To the casual observer, Penn State has been an overnight sensation in men’s lacrosse. Though the Nittany Lions will be making their first championship weekend appearance in Philadelphia on Saturday, they look for all the world like the odds-on favorite to claim their initial title.

Penn State (16-1), the No. 1 overall seed, is riding a 13-game winning streak and features the nation’s top-rated offense totaling 18 goals a game. While the other three semifinalists all needed overtime to survive the quarterfinal round last weekend, the Nittany Lions fittingly won their tilt with Loyola (Md.) by a footballesque 21-14 margin.

“We’re extremely excited to be among such an elite group of lacrosse programs,” said Nittany Lions’ coach Jeff Tambroni. “Just having been part of this weekend before as a kid and as a coach, we’re just really happy to be in this environment.

So, without hesitation, he says what a lot of fans are thinking about Saturday’s semifinals in Philadelphia, where top-seeded Penn State plays No. 5 seed Yale and No. 2 seed Duke takes on No. 3 seed Virginia.

“I personally think the championship game will be played in the semifinal game,” said Toomey, referring to the matchup between Penn State and Yale. “With respect to all the teams out there, Yale has one of the best faceoff guys in the country and getting through Penn was huge for them, but Penn State is a different animal right now.”

Few knew how the Nittany Lions would perform in the NCAA tournament. They beat Maryland for the first time this season and also won the Big Ten regular-season and conference tournament titles, but they had never won an NCAA tournament game in the nine years coach Jeff Tambroni had been at the school.

After dispatching of Denver in the quarterfinals, the No. 1 seeded Maryland Terrapins take on their Big Ten rivals, the fourth-seeded Northwestern Wildcats, Friday night in the Final Four of the 2019 Division I women's lacrosse tournament. 

It's a matchup of two NCAA women's lacrosse heavyweights, the Terps winning three of the last five national titles, while Northwestern has seven championship trophies of their own. 

Maryland and Northwestern faced each other twice earlier this season, the Terps triumphing in their lone regular season matchup 17-13 on April 11. The Wildcats got revenge in the Big Ten Tournament Championship game in a 16-11 affair, Maryland's only loss of the season thus far.